This is the 10% happier podcast.

I'm Dan Harris.

Hey gang, happy Thanksgiving.

It is that time of year when at least nominally we're supposed to be giving thanks, being

grateful.

But as is the case with so many positive human qualities, we don't often get a lot of specific

instruction about how to actually be grateful to be a little cute about it.

How do we elevate gratitude beyond mere platitude?

That is what we're going to talk about today.

Dara Williams, my guest is a meditation teacher and psychotherapist.

She's a graduate of the Spirit Rock Insight Meditation Society Teacher Training Program

and is also a guiding teacher at IMS.

Not only has she been meditating for more than 25 years, she's also been a clinician and

administrator in the field of mental health for roughly that same period of time.

She currently maintains a private practice in Manhattan.

In this conversation, we talk about how to start knitting gratitude into your everyday

life or as she says, how to think about gratitude like personal hygiene on the level of

taking a shower.

We talk about whether gratitude is possible when everything sucks, how to avoid spiritual

bypass, which she will define.

The opportunity that suffering brings for happiness and how to take our suffering less personally.

The power of reminding yourself that you are nature, our unconscious fascination with

...